Real

I wrote this about 4 weeks ago but it feels like its the right time to share it now; 

It’s Christmas time. I look at pictures from back home and winter has captured and wrapped all of Michigan in beautiful, magic snow. Arizona has allowed the expected heat to be replaces with a chilling air that fills my lungs on my nightly walks around campus. Houses all around me are covered in glorious lights and trees are displayed from windows welcoming friends and family to come in. And here I sit in a local Starbucks with my winter red cup with mint tea in it wanting to name truth for me. I love Christmas, I love the chill in the air, I love the candles being lite and hymns that are being sung in church every week, I love lights, I love the smell of garland and Christmas trees, I love thinking about giving people I love gifts, I love walking up Christmas morning to my family tackling me because I’m always the last one up, I love that we take turns reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke on Christmas morning. So there are many things that I love about Christmas.

But as much as I love this time I know that there is a constant hesitance that takes root in my heart around this time.  For some reason I always feel lonely and like the outcast in many ways during Christmas. I know that I have grown up in a family that adores Christmas. And I have always felt a little like the odd ball out because I was not on the same level as them. Christmas is hard and holds lost of mixed emotions. And I always felt like if I owned this I would be seen as ungrateful or bring everyone else down with me because I was not like everyone else. But three weeks ago I was talking to a couple who I consider both to be incredible friends and I vocalized my ambivalence about Christmas and where I did not totally know what to do with myself in the midst of that. In the moments that followed one of them turned to me and justified everything that I said and spoke kindness over me to just own what I was feeling. That it was ok that I’m not my family and that just because I don’t get as excited about it as they do doesn’t mean that I don’t love it in my own way. Since this interaction I have tried to stay present to my heart.

Right now I am taking the chance to engage in being more real than I have in my life. This last month I’ve found my self in more vulnerable places than in a long time but specifically in the last week I have been in the spotlight of that vulnerability. Last Friday I invited my closest friends into my story in a really new way. I also hosted a Red Tent dinner with the theme of being “present” during December, I had my first counseling session, and owned my brokenness yet that I still have hope that things could be different.

Sharing my story is always challenging with the pastor kids code of protecting your pastor dad no matter what it cost you, and when you have been told you’re so much of a social reject as I have been there is always a fear that those who are listening will wake from there delusional state and leave like so many have before. I knew this would never be the case with my friends but there are some wounds and wrongs that I don’t know that they will ever fully heal.

My Red Tent Dinner was so lovely and held beautiful moments that I wont forget. In thinking and planning for the event I thought about the theme of being present and what I wanted to say about that. I asked the women at the table that throughout the evening I would love if they would share a story from their life where their presences was a gift to those around them, and then afterwards to take the ribbon that was used to wrap the napkins at their place setting and to use it to make a accessory to their outfits so that for the rest of the evening when they saw it they would remember that they are a gift and their presences is welcome. I purposely choose not to come up with a answer before hand so that I could be present as well, and as I thought in the moment about what I wanted to share I was overwhelmed with the fact that I struggle to believe that my presence is welcome and a gift if I am not composed and together or I’m not being the oracle (a very name given to me by a friend that is descriptive of me seeing and speaking truth into the life of whoever is in front of me). I struggle to believe that I am not a burden to people, and that if I own just how broken, messy, or scared I am I would not be welcome.

With counseling, the risk of admitting that I need help and that if I truly am going to be all of the goodness of who I could be I need to going to counseling is a unnerving thought to being with, but then adding the work of researching, contact, setting up a appointment and then going is 7 times past unnerving. However, I was not as afraid of it as I was more aware of something deeper that left me being tearful all day. I knew that I was very tenderly holding the hope that things could be different. That I could be different, that healing, beauty and goodness could be on the other side of this, and that just maybe some of the things I was holding I would not be holding at the end of this journey. I don’t know how longing I will be in counseling, and really at the beginning of the day I did not know if I would stick with this counselor. But I knew that as much as I question if I am a coward or if I have courage, that in this moment this was my courage and gumption fighting for me. And I’m still scared but also excited and hopeful on this end of Monday.

And finally I named truth about the messiness of how I really am, and owning that I feel scared, lost, and broken and it was hard. But I then was asked what I do or believe that keeps me coming back every day and for the first time I realized that my answer is that I choose hope. Everyday I go back into the fight because I have people who need me and I because I want to believe that better things can come today. I choose hope and speak truth because I want to believe that there is goodness for me and because my God has promised me that better times are ahead and that may mean on this earth but I know for a fact that it means eternity with him so no matter what I have something better waiting for me. Before that moment I had never thought or owned that. I know where I struggle to believe truth, and I know that I feel tired and that I don’t know if that will ever go away. But I know that I am Christ’s and that until he comes back or calls me home I have something I need to do hear, and maybe things could be different. I feel like a child when I say that but maybe that’s what life is all about. To flip your perspective and think the opposite of what is expected, either way I know that I have more fun and breath a little better when I choose to let go and be messy.

I all of this may leave someone thinking that I have a terrible self-image or idea of who I am. And in truth have fought really hard to believe truth about myself and I really do believe that goodness about myself and what I offer but I am still human and I still struggle. I have come a long way but all of these events left be feeling rather raw and like I had the biggest vulnerability hangover of all time.

However, My Jesus lets me be real. He knows the last week of my life, he also knows the last year. He knows my brokenness, he knows my ambivalence, and yet he allows me to be real. Part of my day-to-day struggle is knowing how often my heart cry’s out “Jesus where the hell are you? ” I have a really sharp memory that is an enormous gift in many ways but it also means I am painfully aware of how often I’m reminded of where Jesus has felt distant and silent. Yet every time I say it now there is something really tender and incredibly fragile about my heart because in this season I know that Christmas is all about celebrating that Christ did come. Even if it doesn’t feel like his showing up in my life right now, once a year I have to face the glorious truth that no matter how far away he feels, he still came for us…………… for me.   

The moment I first realized this was a few years ago when I researched what advent was really about. Thinking about Advent has become a significant tradition for me. Every year I make an Advent calendar for my RA’s (and also my self) that invites them to rest and take a moment everyday to reflect on Christ’s coming, to not become overwhelmed by the chaos that Christmas has become but to put themselves back into the reality and truth of what Christmas is about. Advent is a time where we as Christian’s prepare a space in our hearts for Christ’s coming. It’s where we can connect with the longing and the ache that exists in our broken world because we need a savoir. I connect best with Christmas in the ache, in the longing, and in the hope. My joy comes from holding the tension of all of these things (and I know I probably am unique in that aspect), however I am left being real in it too.

I want to be real this Christmas, not only to my own story but also to the reality of what the Christmas story means. My Jesus lets me be messy because everything about the Christmas story is messy. We needed a savoir, so Jesus took on the messiness of being fully man and fully God to save us. He picked Mary to be his mother who was a virgin and who no one would believe her story of the conception of Christ. He picked Joseph be his earthy father who would be shamed for taking Mary as his wife. He picked to grow up with messiness and shame marking him and his parents because of their story and his birth. Jesus came to save messy humanity in the most horrifying way possible so that we could be made complete in him. My Jesus does not mind my messy, he doesn’t mind my apprehension, he doesn’t mind my sin or mistakes, he does not mind my story, and he does not mind my brokenness. He says come, and reminded me that just because he feels far away that doesn’t mean that he does not have goodness for me. He came for me, and he will always come for me.

In the midst of this messy week I found this song and it’s what helped this truth find this page tonight.

It still makes me tear up every time.

I ‘m going to be real this season. And I promise to think about the Christmas story in it’s real and true from. Jesus, I pray that you help me be real, to own my life, and to be real as I celebrate your birth. Thank you for coming for me, thank you for loving me in every minute, of every hour, of every day. Thank you for always coming after me because you know how often I run. And even when I can’t feel you I know you have me. Thank you for letting me be real and loving me regardless. Thank you for coming because you loved me, not because I did anything.  You came for just me.